Little Red Riding Hood
by Jack E. Peace
Summary: Once there was a girl and the girl had the idea to change the world...
1. I

**Disclaimer: Not mine, no way, too bad too**

**A/N: So, I just had to write a little _Repo_ fic and it's been gnawing at me for a while so here it is. It was originally supposed to be one story but it got a little long so I split it into the two parts. My Internet isn't exactly reliable at the moment so the second part will be coming a little bit after the first but not too much longer. Thanks for indulging this little story and I hope you enjoy it!  
**

Once there was a girl. The girl lived in a little house on a little patch of land that brushed against a little graveyard a little way out of the city. The graveyard, like the house and like the girl inside, was dingy, depressed and in disrepair. Inside the house it was like a tomb and inside the girl she felt the same. The world around her was dull, grey and unreachable. The only light she ever saw came from the twisted city outside her window, the dirty buildings thick and close like trees in a wood, the dirty people like undergrowth. The light inside the house came from her father, who the girl loved with all her heart, though sometimes she might forget this as girls can sometimes do. Once, the girl had thought that she, like the city, was sick. But one day, the sickness fell away from the girl and left her naked underneath, free from what she had thought that she was. The city could not be healed so easily. It was still dark, grim and dangerous and when the girl, a different girl than she had once been, walked out into the urban forest she was new, white and hopelessly young and all those around her saw this.

The world outside her bedroom was unlike the world the girl had seen from inside her bedroom. Though the girl was almost not a girl anymore, inside she was still a little girl, daddy's little girl in the world without her daddy. She had not been bred to be outside. Those around her smelled this on her, an innocence that they had never got a whiff of and it made them ravenous. When they saw this girl, they didn't notice the white exterior, the black dress or the red blood coating her skin; they saw only that there was no hardness in her round, button colored eyes. The city had not settled on her.

But the girl didn't know any of this, didn't know she wore her innocence around her like a cloak. She didn't know what she was stepping into when she left behind the opera house and all those she had known in her life before. She was still high on what she had learned and in shock from the death of her daddy and those two emotions created an interesting cocktail that made her want to dance, sing and vomit all at once. But this time there was no pill to swallow to settle her down.

Eyes followed the girl as she moved down the sidewalk, tangled with people and trash and propaganda. Subconsciously, the girl walked through the forest of people and stares toward the only place she knew. Freedom only meant so much.

The house loomed over her, silent and unfamiliar from the outside. The graveyard was also silent and still but to the girl it seemed as though there were vibrations coming from the very ground beneath her feet, the shifting of the dead. But the dead weren't the only ones shifting that day and when the girl turned the corner of the mausoleum where she knew her mother, she saw that she wasn't alone after all. Her shoe dislodged a rock and her companion's head snapped up and his wild eyes scanned his misty surroundings. The fear vanished from his face. "Kid, is that you?" There was a little laugh in his voice, amusement at his own fear.

She stepped forward. "I have a name, you know." A little girl's indignation.

The Graverobber stood and left the now useless body at his feet. "It's better if you don't." He pointed out. "Don't knock anonymity."

But the girl didn't want to fade, vanish and disappear. Complete reinvention would be mind boggling at this point. She might have her freedom, her legacy spread out before her, but to leave behind her past seemed like disrespect for the man who, despite all his faults, had brought her up. Soon she might be just another body in this graveyard and another name on a crumbling rock but that name would be Shilo Wallace.

The Graverobber seemed to be about to chide her again but stopped when he saw her appearance. "Do I want to know what the other guys look like?" She could see surprise peaking around his humor.

"No." Shilo answered simply, thinking of the scene in the opera house.

The Graverobber seemed surprised by the girl's frankness. Before she'd had a child's knack of speaking too much, vivacious in her use of words, talking when it would be a better idea to keep silent. Now she was keeping silent when he wished she would talk. It was a very frustrating turn of events. "Kid, what's gotten into you?" He looked at her closely. She didn't seem hurt but there was so much blood but she wore it like a second skin, something she was oblivious or immune to.

"Nothing." Shilo replied. "Nothing's in me." A slightly insane smiled crossed her eyes when she said those words. "Nothing."

* * *

Eventually the girl told the Graverobber everything, but it wasn't until much later that night, until it was nearly morning. Having decided that maybe the smartest thing he could do was leave her alone and not further tangle himself in her bizarre affairs, the Graverobber had tried to go about his business, moving with sure-footedness among the dead, getting what he needed and pocketing his treasures. Unfortunately the girl followed after him, though how she managed to keep up in those clunky boots and ill-fitting dress was beyond him. She looked, to him, like a little girl deciding to play in mommy's clothes, dressing up like one of the adults. Eventually, it became clear that he wasn't going to shake her and she didn't want to be shook. Shilo didn't say much, just moved, piloted by her subconscious, her mind too submerged in thought to let her think much past following her unlikely new companion around.

The Graverobber figured she was trouble but he allowed her into his humble abode nonetheless. Everyone was trouble these days, especially himself, so what was one more streak of bad judgment? His place wasn't much and he'd never shown it to or shared it with another person but the girl moved around like she owned the place, poking and prodding and touching, all with that same saucer-eyed silence that was a little unnerving. Feeling entirely too domestic for his liking, the Graverobber had cooked up a stew of some kind and the smell had wafted through the house, drawing the girl like a moth to a flame. He'd dished out the soup, held out the bowl then snatched it away from her extended hands. "You've got to start talking, Kid." He'd said. "You're freaking me out."

So she'd talked, managing to make herself spill the events of the night around spoonfuls of stew which filled her stomach and body with a strange, solid warmth. This wasn't a food the girl was used to; it didn't look entirely sterile. When her story was done the sun was rising behind the windows and people continued to pass around them, moving through their own lives.

The Graverobber leaned back in his chair. "That's some sick shit." He said, though Shilo couldn't tell from his tone whether he was impressed or disgusted. "Sorry about your old man, Kid. I lost my dad when I was young too, I know how you feel."

Shilo frowned at him. "I bet it wasn't your fault though." She challenged and he shook his head, having no other choice. "What happened to him…that was because of me." She slumped in her chair and her eyes filled with tears.

The Graverobber cleared his throat, unaccustomed to this sort of thing. Should he hug her? Pat her hand? Leave her alone? Did women like to be alone when they cried? He didn't know so he just stayed where he was.

Angrily Shilo wiped away a tear, clinching her fingers into a fist. Again, the Graverobber cleared his throat. "Look, Kid, your dad might have been a little crazy, but he loved you, he was your dad." Shilo looked at him and he couldn't read her expression. He hated to admit he found her a little unnerving, but there you had it. "You just gotta...you know…make him proud." He hadn't exactly been made for these parental pep talks. Hell, he hadn't invited this girl back to his house for a little counseling session, she got what she got.

Shilo frowned. "Everyone is saying that." She said. She thought about her father's words …_go and change the world for me_… and even what Mag had said …_integrity, honesty_…Talk about pressure.

The Graverobber shrugged. "Maybe they're onto something then."

* * *

Once there was a wolf. The clothing this wolf wore didn't belong to a sheep but an entirely different sort of animal and one far more dangerous. Like most wolves, this one lived in a pack of like-minded creatures, all trying to be more vicious, more hungry and more cunning than their litter mates. They tried to learn from the leader of the pack, who would have been surprised to learn that he wasn't the most vicious, or the most cunning member of his family. This wolf was the baby of the pack, the incapable one, the damaged one, the one cut loose and counted as a lost cause. No one realized this wolf was the most cunning, the most vicious until she had rose up from the shadows she had been cast into and seized control of the pack.

Like all wolves, this wolf was a predator, an opportunist and an expert manipulator. While her brothers were squabbling with themselves in a ruined den, this wolf slipped in and got them by the throats before they even realized what had happened and it was too late to deny this wolf her leadership.

From the ruins around her, the wolf began to build up a castle, reminding those who might be inclined to think otherwise exactly what pack she belonged to and who ran the woods around them. Taking control of the leadership wasn't difficult, reestablishing their presence wasn't complicated. It was easy for the wolf to rule the woods, the shadows, when she had spent so much time there. People were sheep, they needed to be led, even if their Shepard was a slaughterer.

Like any good ruler, this wolf knew the actions of her subjects, could witness the self-destruction around her from the top of her castle. Eventually the people, the city, would crumble into nothing, they would fall like every great civilization before them, but until then, she was going to make the most of what she had.

When someone moved through her territory that she didn't like, the wolf knew about it, regardless of the illusions that people tended to have. Her eyes could see everything, her ears could hear everything and she could always smell when something was approaching.

* * *

A few days had passed since the little girl had died and in her place had grown something new. She wasn't sure what it was yet but the sensation of finding out was one that filled her body with a warm and pleasant feeling, a sense of excitement and despair unlike anything she'd ever felt before. She missed her father every day, but she tried to remember him for who he was to her, not who Rotti Largo had tried to make him out to be. There was more to her father than even she would ever be able to understand and she grieved for the fact that it had never occurred to her to ask.

The Graverobber had, more or less, adjusted to having the girl there with him. It was as nice as it was strange, to have someone sharing his house and feeling the presence of another person in the next room in the middle of the night somehow made everything less darker. Though the conversation hadn't changed much in the house, because the girl still seemed to have lost the gift of gab but at least he was getting used to her silence and the fact that she had the odd tendency of moving around the house in the middle of the night, appearing to him like a ghostly spirit as she wandered, her sleep schedule disrupted from having spent the entire life in bed.

One night when the Graverobber came home, he found the girl looking much rosier and alive than usual, bright and innocent, almost like the girl he had met that very first time fate had absurdly thrown them together. Obviously, fate had a sense of humor.

Before the Graverobber could comment on the girl's rediscovered personality, his attention was snatched away by her actions. Shilo had found his hidden treasures, the results of those long nights in the graveyards, the stash that he didn't carry around with him. The light glowing from the vials danced across her face, the shadows twisting as her fingers moved across the surface. Usually when he saw the glow from the bottles reflected in the eyes of the addicts, he saw only hunger and agony. With the girl, there was nothing but curiosity.

"Kid, what do you think you're doing?" The Graverobber shouted so suddenly that Shilo jumped, dropping the bottle that she'd been examining. It shattered on the floor, the contents sizzling on the ground at her feet, twisting into the sky in a sinister vapor. The Graverobber nudged the bag away from her. "That stuff is bad news, off limits." For the first time, he really did feel like he was talking to a child.

Shilo looked surprised. "I wasn't­-"

"One hit of that stuff and you're gone for life." The Graverobber continued, eyeing the bag as though it was a snake on the floor. Sometimes he wondered why he'd ever got into this business, but times were hard, things weren't simple anymore, there was no such thing as a decent living. In this world, it was kill or be killed and unfortunately the human race only saw one another as tools necessary to get from one place or the other. He didn't want to be anyone's tool, thank you very much. "Don't you have more self-respect than that?" He snapped and wondered if he was talking to the girl or to himself.

"I know." Shilo retorted, again with the indignation, the little girl's attitude.

The Graverobber picked up the bag and surreptitiously deposited his recent acquisitions with the vials that all ready rattled around. He started to take the bag into the back room but paused, turning back to glance at the girl, who was frowning, occupied by racing thoughts, thoughts he wasn't sure he wanted to be privy to. "What were you doing with this anyway?" His tone was causal, but his voice was hard.

Shilo looked at him, unsure of how to answer and in her uncertainty her guilt shown through. She'd never had to hide or regulate her emotions and now the girl wore her guilt plain on her face. "I…well…" Her mouth opened and closed like a fish on a hook.

Quickly his face clouded over and his hands tightened around the straps of the bag. "That's a good way to find yourself out on the street." He growled, his words vibrating through the house.

The girl stepped back like he was advancing on her. "I'm sorry. I just…I've just been thinking about what my father said, about changing the world and there's just so much hurt and distrust and it's tearing people apart…look what it did to my dad…" The words tumbled from Shilo's mouth in away that the Graverobber had never heard. "And people are so unaware of what's going on around them, what's being done to them and if they knew they might be more active in changing things and we wouldn't have to live like this and this stuff is just another part of the problem and I thought maybe if there was less of it than people would start to wake up and you could get out and things could start to get better and I know I shouldn't have touched your stuff and please don't throw me out and I was just trying to help and think about what my father said and I don't have anywhere else to go-"

"Kid, shut up." The Graverobber interrupted because he'd long stopped being able to understand the rush of words that came pouring out of her. He was stating to miss the old, eerily silent Shilo because he wasn't sure he could handle this kind of nonsense chatter all the time. At his words, Shilo fell silent, but her mouth still hung open slightly in case she still had to defend herself. "Kid, you're noble, but you're very stupid." Shilo's mouth snapped shut now, silenced by her surprise. "You're not going to change the world, this world doesn't want to be changed." He hated to be the one to pass that on to her, that should have been daddy's job, but the kid had to learn how the world worked before it got her killed. It was almost pathetic, her naivety, her innocence, her passion and it made him sad and excited at the same time. But the world outside this door would devour her, they'd rip that innocence from her in hopes of taking it for themselves and they'd tear her down for being different. That was how society worked, there was no place for difference, and that was especially how the Largo's society worked.

The Graverobber didn't want to apologize for his words but he found himself doing it anyway. "Look, Kid, I like you. I don't know why because, hell, I've never liked anybody. Bu that's just the way it works, trying to change the world is suicide. Don't let your dad keep killing you."

The girl nodded and said nothing. She had gone back to being sullen and he hoped she was understanding of what he'd said. She might not like it, but if it saved her life than that was what mattered. Whoever said he ever did anything to help anyone obviously didn't know him very well.

* * *

It goes without saying that the girl didn't listen to her guardian. With the single-minded determination of a teenager, she silently decided to pursue the plan she'd been manufacturing in her mind. As most teenagers are inclined to do, Shilo thought she knew best and knew how things worked. She was, after all, seventeen and had, after all, been through some difficult, trying and life changing circumstances. This made her more than capable of making her own decisions and following the wishes of her father. For once.

So, armed with her determination, the girl set out through the forest that was the city, on her way toward the house of the family she thought could make everything right again.


	2. II

The wolf, as any good predator does, always knew when its prey was on the move. The wolf didn't need anyone else to inform her of these movements, but her good-for-nothing siblings always scrambled over themselves to bring her this information.

The elevator doors dinged and whooshed open and she didn't turn away from the window where she was watching the city buzz below her. "Amber," Luigi began as soon as he stepped into her parlor, groveling for her attention. "They've spotted that little brat."

Amber rolled her eyes at her well designed reflection. "I know."

"She's been staying with that low-life, drug-dealing-"

"I know." Amber snarled, turning around and her brother swallowed and gave her a nervous smile. "She's the only one left of the old era, the only one who knows more than she should. Do you think I wouldn't know where she was?"

Again, Luigi gave her an anxious smile. "So what should we do?" His eyes glinted for blood.

Again, Amber rolled her eyes. "We aren't going to do anything. Why would I let you have any part in something so important just so you could fuck it up, brother?" She pushed past him and toward the elevator, ignoring him as he tried to stumble back into her good graces. The wolf looked at herself in the stainless reflection of the elevator doors and wondered what others would see. She looked a little fierce, she thought with pride. It was time for a redesign.

* * *

The wolf spotted the girl almost too easily, there was no fun in the chase today. There were many different ways that the girl stood out but Amber had to admit it was the vibrant red dress and clunky battle boots that first captured her attention. Obviously her new guardian was helping her dress now. The girl never would have blended in with the crowd, even if she tried and not just because of her outfit. Everyone else moved around with a brisk, mind-your-business way but little Shilo Wallace couldn't stop looking, gaping, staring and Amber was amazed that she even remembered to blink. She also seemed to be a little lost, a little girl trying not to stray from the path.

Shilo jumped in surprise when Amber slid up beside her, resting a hand on her shoulder. "You look lost, little girl." The wolf said in a syrupy voice, giving the girl a smile. "Where are you going?"

The wolf knew what the girl saw when she looked at her; she might not have changed her face but her clothes and hair nearly matched the outfit that Shilo had seen her wearing that evening in the alley. Though she hadn't had her hit for the day, Amber knew that her eyes still had a bit of a roll to them, a daze that wouldn't go away anymore, not without the necessary Detox that she wasn't interested in. Shilo wouldn't think of her as anything different than the strung out, hapless woman she'd met days before. The most dangerous disguise was the familiar one.

Shilo, not knowing that Amber was more dangerous than her father, didn't grasp that she should be afraid of this woman beside her until it was too late. If you've never met a wolf, you do not know to be afraid of it. "I'm going to see you, actually." The girl admitted meekly, though she was all ready puffing up, trying to make herself seem more assertive than she was. "And your brothers." Of course she would assume they were the ones she needed to deal with when they could hardly stop bickering with one another long enough to realize what day it was.

But the wolf just smiled. "Really? I'm sure you're the last person they'll expect to see…after what happened." Her tone was conspiratorial.

The girl nodded her assent. "I never expected to see them again either." Amber had to hand it to her, there was some genuine vigor in her voice. "But things can't go on like this anymore."

Amber arched an eyebrow. "Oh?" She might not have to drag information out of this stupid girl after all. Once she understood her intentions, she could decide the best way to proceed, though she all ready had an inkling.

If Shilo was surprised by her interest, she didn't show it. "Things are falling apart around here, haven't you noticed? People need to know the truth about what's going on and it's all because of GeneCo." Amber was, if nothing else, a master of her face and it kept only the expression she wanted the girl to see. "Things can still be turned around…it's not too late…not like it was for my dad…" Shilo looked at Amber with perseverance in her eyes, the stony and childlike conviction of someone who'd never heard the word _no_ before. "Things can get better. Things have to get better." Shilo hesitated and looked at Amber with uncertainty in her eyes. She thought about what the Graverobber had said. "Don't people want that?"

Amber gently rested a hand on the girl's cheek, her crimson-tipped nails standing out like pricks of blood on her snow-white skin. "Of course." She assured the pathetically hopeful child. But she knew that in those two words lurked one of the biggest lies she'd told, the knowledge that, no matter how bad things could possibly get, people would never rise up, they would never try to change the world around them because those who did never made it far enough to see how everything eventually slipped back into the same sad state it would always be. The world worked a certain way, no matter what time or civilization you studied; the only thing that mattered was if you were one of the people who found out how to control the society or one of the people who got controlled. Amber would not be controlled.

Seemingly comforted by Amber's words, Shilo blurted, "And if they don't want to help, I'll just tell everyone the truth. About what happened to my dad, the truth about everything." A dangerous ultimatum and she hadn't even realized what she'd said. "No one would support GeneCo then."

"You might be right." The wolf replied evenly, nodding her assurance. Maybe the girl was right, but she'd never have to worry about finding out, because the words would never leave her lips again. Luigi would have gone ballistic at her words, carved her up right there in the middle of every Good Samaritan with somewhere else to be at that exact moment. He would have made the morning's papers until he did the same thing to someone else and the problem would have been taken care of and never spoken of again. But Luigi's antics hardly got the attention of anyone these days and they soiled the standard of GeneCo. Amber wanted people to understand that their revenge didn't always come so directly, that by the time you realized you'd stepped into the trap you'd never walk out again. "I'll walk with you, the city can be confusing to navigate."

Amber knew that she'd said the right thing when she saw the girl relax; she'd been worried about taking the wrong path, straying somewhere she didn't belong, but now she had a guide, a companion and now she had nothing at all to worry about. Shilo thought of her father, how proud he would be of her, how she finally deserved his pride. She didn't realize that following her dad's last request was the equivalent of arming herself with a slingshot against a giant because he claimed it was a reliable weapon.

Together, the girl and the wolf moved through the city. The girl didn't realize how everyone's eyes fell away from her as soon as they saw her companion, giving them a wide berth to avoid becoming entangled in whatever trap was ensnaring Shilo. The girl wanted to stop to pick up everything, to touch the buildings, trinkets, people and wares around her, leave her mark on the place she'd only been able to watch from her window. She had the feeling she would have definitely strayed if Amber hadn't come along.

Soon, the wolf spoke again. "My father gave me some advice too." The girl looked at her with distrust on her face. Rotti Largo was a man she understood that she should fear, a murderer, a manipulator, the one who'd taken her father from her. She didn't understand that everything is heredity. "He wanted me to change things as well…like you."

Shilo looked curious. "_You_ want to change things?" It never would have occurred to her that Amber would be dissatisfied with the life that she led and would seek out something different. Amber didn't bother to correct her, to assure her that the changes she sought to make were nothing like the idealistic drabble the girl had running around in her head.

"My father always said to look past what was right in front of you, look past what was going on now and think about what might be going in the future." Amber didn't directly answer the girl's question because she wouldn't be able to give her the answer that she wanted and it might give her a whiff of the danger she'd just put herself in. "The future is only what you do in the present and to make the right decisions, you have to think about what you want in the future."

The little girl seemed impressed with the sentiment. "I guess you have to have big eyes to see and consider all those things." She murmured. Her father had never spoken to her about the future, leaving the prospect dangling in midair, a carrot tied to a horse, always just out of reach no matter how hard you tried to move closer to it. The future was used to mollify her, a prompt to take her medicine and be a dutiful daughter.

Amber smirked. "My father wasn't many things. But he was a good businessman." A good father, not so much. An understanding man, a gentle man…he wasn't those things either. "He also used to say that it was important to listen to what was going on around you, what the people were saying." She didn't add that the reason Rotti Largo said this was so that you would always know if and where an uprising was brewing, if someone was thinking of starting a PR issue, you would take it down before it happened. Much like she was doing now. But a good predator never reveals the most important cards, only the ones that don't matter.

Again, Shilo seemed pleased with Amber's words, forgetting for the moment who she was speaking to and about who. She had never been prepared to live in a world outside her room, outside the house her father kept nice and neat and safe, child-proofed and secure. If she had, she would know never to forget who she was with and never to trust anyone, not even her own self. The mind was weak, the heart was weaker and it only took one of those organs to lead you into danger.

But before Shilo could further comment on Amber's words, the wolf was speaking again. "My father never knew that I actually listened to what he said. He always assumed that Luigi would be the one to take over the business, but he would run it into the ground. We've built up too much to have it ruined. By anyone." The girl turned to look at her, her face a flickering in a brief flash of confusion. Amber's hand rested on the spot between her shoulders, her fingers inching upward to curl around the back of her neck. Shilo felt the spidery-sensation and the cold feeling of fear spreading through her spine, the same sensation she felt when she looked at Rotti. The greed, the hunger, the desire to consume those around him in order to benefit himself. She saw this in Amber now, the clothing falling away to reveal the wolf beneath.

The girl opened her mouth to protest, to make the childish demand to be let go but Amber drove her backward, into an alley and against the wall. Shilo would have tripped over the trash scattered across the ground if Amber's grip hadn't been so commanding. "You're a stupid girl, you're don't know when you should keep your mouth shut. Obliviously you'll never learn." She remembered their confrontation in the alley, how her mention of Blind Mag had brought her crashing back into reality regardless of whether she'd wanted to or not, blurting out the first thing that came to her mind when it would have been better to keep silent. Clearly that was a trait the girl was holding onto.

The girl tried to push away but the wolf held her down, keeping her in place with one hand around her throat. "You'll never take down GeneCo." Amber hissed. "And I won't let you. It's finally mine, like it always should have been and it's going to stay that way."

Amber snaked one hand into the waistband of her jeans and withdrew a gun that Shilo instantly recognized: the rusty exterior, the long needle and the glowing blue vial. "No-" Shilo croaked, thinking about the girls in the alley, their mindless dedication towards something that was rapidly stealing their life. She thought about the Graverobber, who had looked panicked when he saw her with the vials, horrified at the idea of her becoming hooked on his livelihood.

But the wolf ignored her. "You won't feel like you need to change the world anymore, little girl. You won't feel nothing at all." Amber promised. She pressed the needle into the soft skin of the girl's throat. Instead of giving her a hit, she pulled the trigger until the entire vial was emptied.

Shilo tried to protest, but couldn't get out a sound before the drug had opened its jaws and swallowed her up.

* * *

When the Kid didn't come home that night, the Graverobber wondered. When the Kid didn't come home that morning, the Graverobber worried. It wasn't a natural feeling for him and he wasn't entirely sure he liked it, but that didn't change the fact that the sensation was with him constantly, a gnawing wonder as to where the Kid had stumbled off to. If it was any other person in the city, he wouldn't have thought twice about the disappearance but the girl didn't belong out there on her own and he doubted she could even make it through one day without fatherly guidance.

When the Kid still didn't return the following night, the Graverobber was certain that something had happened to her. But it was a dangerous place to go looking for someone, it was a dangerous thing to pursue the missing. You never knew why they'd gone missing in the first place and it was wise not to entangle yourself in the affairs of someone else.

A week went by and though he'd never admit it, the Graverobber missed having her presence in the house. She hadn't stayed here long, but she'd reminded him of companionship and a part of him wished that, at any minute, she'd come walking back through the door, maybe scarred and torn from the city but alive nonetheless.

But life went on and he couldn't wait around the house, though the Graverobber did spend a little bit more time in his oh-so-humble abode than usual, just in case she'd stumble inside, drawn toward a familiar place. But business was booming, there were vices that needed to be met and he was just the man to fill them.

There seemed to be more bodies rotting than usual and his vials were quickly filling up, his pockets clinking and rattling with money to be made. Grunting, the Graverobber hefted and shoved aside an empty and used body, reaching into the pile for the next. He gasped, recoiling in shock when he saw the face of the corpse he'd chosen from the masses. "Oh, Kid." The Graverobber sank down into a squat, looking at the unmistakable body at his feet. Someone had stripped her of her dress, her cameo, even her wig, but her face was still unmistakable, forever frozen in a combination of suffering and euphoria. The Graverobber could see the equally unmistakable puncture mark on the side of her neck, the sing of a venomous insect.

In the girl's fist was a crumpled, dingy flyer with Amber Sweet's face beaming from the paper, a friendly little reminder to control your addiction to Zydrate. The Graverobber tore the flyer and scattered the pieces across the bodies on the ground, a brief spasm of anger and disappointment. The city had gotten her anyway, taken her and turned her into the filth and rot that everyone existed among. There was no going back, no one who could turn back time and cut her from the belly of the beast that had swallowed her up.

The Graverobber stood and turned away, leaving the bodies and the graveyard behind him. Along the way, he tossed away the vials, certain that eventually they would be grabbed and used until they were dry but it wouldn't be from his hands. Not this time and not anymore.

**A/N: So there it is, I hope you enjoyed it. If you wanted to review, I wouldn't be opposed :) **


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